4D Printing and Thinking

Join us for a discussion on 4D printing with Ross Stevens Program Director Industrial Design, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Design, on Wednesday, July 12 at 2:30pm. Stevens will discuss how we can re-imagine how to construct things to understand them as 4 dimensional manifestations of data. See below for a more detailed talk description.

Digital imagery on a screen can create a hyper reality full of vibrant colors, glossy transparency and supple movement. However, when transporting this data from the virtual to the physical realm through current 3D printers, one can only extract a crude monotone facsimile of its former self. As artificial intelligence combines with ubiquitous real time sensors, the discrepancy between the information experiences will grow, potentially leaving the stilted physical world behind as the poor cousin to its exponentially expanding virtual relative. But this does not necessarily need to happen if we can re-imagine how we construct things as 4 dimensional manifestations of data. This is the great challenge and opportunity offered by additive manufacturing technology that is simply the most direct and dynamic process available to make data physical.